LONDON (AFP) — The House Of Lords Wednesday rejected a bid by the mothers of two soldiers killed in Iraq to force the government to hold a public inquiry into Britain's involvement in the conflict.
A committee in the House of Lords, which hears appeals, rejected an appeal by lawyers for Beverley Clarke and Rose Gentle who argued that the government of then prime minister Tony Blair breached its duty to the men and women of the armed forces.
The appeal had claimed that the government had failed to ensure in advance that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was lawful and justified.
At a hearing in the House of Lords in February, lawyer Rabinder Singh said: "That duty is owed to soldiers who are under the unique compulsory control of the state and have to obey orders.
"They have to put their lives in harm's way if necessary because their country demands it.
"There is what some people call a military covenant between the state and those who are literally prepared to put their lives at risk for the sake of their country."
The case was brought against current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Blair last June, Defence Secretary Des Browne and the Attorney General -- the government's legal advisor -- Baroness Scotland.
The mothers challenged an appeal court ruling in 2006 that the government was not under an implied obligation to order an independent inquiry under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the "right to life".
They said the government's promise of an inquiry "when the time is right" was insufficient.
Clarke's son David was killed in a friendly fire incident in March 2003 near Basra, and Gordon Gentle, Rose's son, died in June 2004 in a roadside bomb attack in Basra.
Britain was the United States' staunchest ally in the invasion.
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